Konnichiwa, Salam Alaikum, Shalom 🤗

Traveling has always been a passion of mine, allowing me to fully immerse myself in new places—tasting the local cuisine, engaging with people, and listening to their stories. As a teacher, I had the privilege of taking occasional breaks to explore beautiful destinations with my daughter. However, the limited weeks were never enough. So, in July 2023, just before my daughter started school, we embarked on a year-long adventure.

Our journey began by train to Istanbul, with several stops across Europe. From there, we traveled by bus and hitchhiked through Georgia, Armenia, Iran, UAE, and Oman. We visited Sri Lanka and Nepal, and then continued by land and sea (no planes) from Malaysia through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, China, and Korea, finally arriving in Japan.

During our travels, we heard from fellow travelers about the benefits of Couchsurfing—connecting with locals, getting a glimpse into their daily lives, sharing meals and stories, creating memories, and building friendships. This inspired us to join the Couchsurfing community while on the road. Thanks to this amazing community, we’ve made many friends, experienced unforgettable moments, and discovered incredible places.

Since August 24, we’ve been back in Zürich and started hosting. Since october 24 also my sri lankan partner joined living with us. We’ve lived by the motto "a friend you haven’t met yet" while surfing, and we carry that spirit into hosting. However, we’ve noticed that many messages we receive are copy-pasted. If someone can’t take a few minutes to look at our profile, why should we invest time in their request? If I’m opening my home to someone, I want to know a bit about them. Why do they want to stay with us? What connects us? What can we share or exchange with each other? If you can’t even address me by my name, Jackie, or find something that links us, then don’t expect anything more than a decline.

I’m deeply interested in getting to know people and their experiences, understanding what makes them happy, and sharing moments of joy in the present. 💫 So, whether we meet as surfer, host, or for a meetup, I’m all about connecting with friends from around the world whom I haven’t met yet. I want to show my daughter that the world is full of wonder and that we have friends everywhere 🥰

Feel free to contact us anytime!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

To connect with people around the world. Learn from each other 🤗

Interests

I love being active and in nature 💚

• animals
• education
• hiking
• mountains
• food
• meeting people
• new cultures
• family
• via ferrata
• brazilian jiu jitsu
• thai boxing

Music, Movies, and Books

Imagine (John Lennon)

Thousand splendid suns (Khaled Housseini)

Slumdog Millionaire

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Decided spontaneously to travel from India to Kyrgyzstan and wasn't equipped for any multiple day hikes. Ended up doing amazing multiple days hike to Ala Kul and many more hikes - many by myself.

Hitchhiked through Central Asia, Patagonia, Georgia to Iran

Went to Afghanistan, Wakhan Corridor, and then visited an NGO by myself.

Travelled with my daughter from Zürich (Switzerland) to Muscat (Oman) and then from Malaysia to Japan (Tokyo) all by land and sea 🌏

Teach, Learn, Share

I'm happy to teach you anything I can. I teach economics and law at a vocational baccalaureate school and can share the basics with you. One of my dreams is to support women in becoming economically independent. Therefore, I'm trying to help people with their business ideas, building a framework of knowledge to pass on.I can also help you with languages through conversation practice and would love to improve my own foreign language skills.

Additionally, I can show you hiking routes in Switzerland, practice yoga with you, and share dishes I know while learning new recipes (though I'm not great at seasoning) 🫣👩🏽‍🍳

What I Can Share with Hosts

I can prepare breakfast, meals, or dessert 🤗 it might not look instagram-able, but I will try my best 😉 I can help you learn a language through conversation and share some travel stories with you 💜

Language exchange is also close to my heart, and as a teacher of economics and law, I can explain a lot in this area. We can discuss all sorts of things, play "Gämsch" or simply practice yoga together.

My daughter loves crafting and painting and would be very happy if we played games together.

Countries I’ve Visited

Afghanistan, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands, Oman, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates

Countries I’ve Lived In

Philippines, Switzerland, Thailand